He said: “It’s a very sad state of affairs. But it’s a fact that homophobia in football is as strong now as it was 10 years ago...

Max now believes any star would be unwise to follow the example of Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas who has come out as gay.He warned: “If he did, it would effectively be his career over.”

Of course, one reason why gay footballers might not wish to tell everyone about their sexuality is so they can avoid childish 'jokes' such as this one. From the Daily Star:

That article claims homophobic supporters sang a 'sick song' which the Star then goes to the trouble of repeating, just so any other bigot who might want to sing it will know all the words.

And several years ago, when Steven Gerrard had topped a 'sexiest footballer' poll of gay fans, the Star ran a picture of him with a handbag photoshopped onto his arm.

On Tuesday, the Star's right-wing, red-top rival proved calling homosexuals crude names is hardly a thing of the past. The Sun's Gordon Smart wrote a (fascinating) article about Louie Spence being at a party hosted by the Beckhams.

And the Sun isn't the only Murdoch paper using such unacceptable language. Carrie Dunn at The F Word reports that in last week's Sunday Times, tiresome controversy-seeker AA Gill said:

Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian, and I felt foolish and guilty. So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise. Sorry.

Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation.

Balding, unsurprisingly, was offended and wrote to editor John Witherow. His response was as ignorant and arrogant as it could have been:

In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society. Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes.

A person’s sexuality should not give them a protected status. Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps the epitome of the heterosexual male, is constantly jeered at for his dress sense (lack of), adolescent mind-set and hair style.

He puts up with it as a presenter’s lot and in this context I hardly think that AA Gill’s remarks were particularly 'cruel', especially as he ended by so warmly endorsing you as a presenter.

When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.

This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. ‘Dyke’ is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I’ve had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me.

It may be your job to defend your writer and your editorial team but if you really think that homophobia does not exist and was not demonstrated beyond being ‘the butt of a joke’ then we have a problem.

But on 9 October, the Mail ran a story headlined 'Hunger striker's £7m Big Mac' which claimed - on the basis of an anonymous police source - that Subramanyam had been secretly eating hamburgers and wasn't actually on hunger strike at all. The following day, the Sun ran the same story, with the headline 'Hunger Striker was Lovin’ It: Bogus…striker was 'eating burgers''.

Victoria Jolliffe, counsel for Associated Newspapers and News Group newspapers, told the court that both organisations had withdrawn the allegations and apologised 'sincerely and unreservedly' to Subramanyam for the distress that had been caused.

The Mail ran this, linked from their homepage, although positioned very near the bottom:

An article (9 October 2009), 'Hunger striker's £7m Big Mac', reported claims that Mr Subramanyam was caught secretly eating burgers while on hunger strike during the Tamil protest in London, wasting significant police costs. We now accept that there was no truth in these allegations and we and other media have agreed to pay him damages and have apologised to Mr Subramanyam for the distress and embarrassment caused.

Our article of 9 October 2009 falsely alleged that throughout a 23 day hunger strike, Mr Parameswaran Subramanyam secretly ate takeaway burgers when dishonestly claiming he was on hunger strike in support of Sri Lankan Tamils, in a campaign which was policed at considerable expense and caused the police to waste public money.

We now accept that these allegations are totally untrue. Mr Subramanyam, whose sole aim has always been to promote the Tamil cause, did not eat any food at all during his hunger strike.

We apologise to Mr Subramanyam and his family for any upset and embarrassment caused and are paying him a substantial sum in damages.

Subramanyam's lawyer, Magnus Boyd, said:

“The allegations are entirely false which both defendants now accept. The claimant did not consume any food at all throughout his hunger strike. The Metropolitan Police Superintendent who was in charge of the operation in Parliament Square confirmed that there was no police surveillance team using 'specialist monitoring equipment' and that no video evidence existed.”

"I am relieved that this matter is now resolved and I can start to rebuild my life again The past eight months have been an unbearable strain on my life, to the extent that at times I have even contemplated taking my own life.

"As a result of the lies that the Newspapers published about me, and through no fault of my own, I have lost friends, been shunned by family members and completely ostracised from the Tamil community."

However, these results must be interpreted in the correct context, as the risk of newborn death was very low in both groups: 4.2 out of 10,000 births in normal working hours, and 5.6 out of 10,000 births out-of-hours.

'Three times more' would be 12.6 out of 10,000 - a vast difference to 5.6.

Journalist Sophie Borland gets this right in her article, but the headline writer couldn't tell the difference - either because they didn't understand it's not the same, or because 'three times more likely' sounded more sensationalist.

However, Borland doesn't get everything totally correct. Her first sentence says:

Women who give birth at night or weekends face a higher risk of their baby dying due to hospital staffing shortages, research suggests.

However, as Behind the Headlines points out:

It is misleading to report that the associations may be ‘due to hospital staffing shortages’, as the causes of different death rates have not been examined in this research and any such claims are based on speculation.

On 21 July we published an article claiming that the video games company Rockstar Games were planning to release a version of their popular Grand Theft Auto video games series titled “Grand Theft Auto Rothbury”.

We also published what we claimed would be the cover of this game, solicited comments from a family member impacted by the recent tragedy and criticised Rockstar Games for their alleged plans.

We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.

It is now accepted that there were never any plans by Rockstar Games to publish such a game and that the story was false. We apologise for publishing the story using a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member.

We unreservedly apologise to Rockstar Games and we have undertaken not to repeat the claims again. We have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity.

The admission that they 'made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication' is a damning one.

Friday, 23 July 2010

It came just as UK airspace was reopening after the shutdown cause by the volcanic ash cloud.

But the 'terror' and 'dramatic pictures' as 'plane hits ash cloud' were, it was only revealed deep into the story, from a television documentary about an incident from 1982.

To pretend this was some dramatic new event was desperate scaremongering and deliberately dishonest.

It led to this edition of the paper being removed from newsagent shelves at Gatwick and Manchester airports, on the grounds it was 'inappropriate'.

And several people complained to the Press Complaints Commission.

Originally, the Star offered to publish this clarification:

On April 21 2010, on our front page, we published a photograph about a British Airways jumbo jet flying into a cloud of volcanic ash. Our story which followed on page 6 made it clear that the image was part of a dramatic reconstruction of a near disaster when BA flight 009 flew into volcanic dust in 1982, due to be shown that night on Five, and not an image of any event that had taken place in the preceding days following the eruption of the volcano in Iceland.

Our article of April 21 2010 headlined “Terror as plane hits ash cloud” – published on the day all UK airports opened their airspace following the volcanic ash disruption – featured a photograph said to show the “moment a British Airways jumbo jet hit a cloud of volcanic ash at 37,000ft”.

This may have wrongly suggested to readers that the photograph depicted a recent event.

As the story subsequently indicated, the image was part of a reconstruction of a near disaster when BA flight 009 flew into volcanic dust in 1982, due to be shown that night on Five.

We apologise to readers for any misunderstanding which may have been caused by the use of the image.

This clearly goes further than the Star initially wanted to go, but the 'apology to readers' is good. And the Star did actually give it a fairly prominent position on page two:

It's certainly an improvement on the very small page two apology mentioned here, although the nature of the story means it is easier to reprint the original.

But is it good enough given the original was the front page lead? Not really.

The Star seemed to recognise this, and so, for once, mentioned the apology on the front page as well:

officials at a coastal resort have deemed a traditional Punch and Judy show too shocking for modern tastes, and ordered any violence to be removed from the script.

But who are the 'officials'? What 'warnings' did they give? Who 'ordered' the changes?

It's not very surprising to find that neither the Mail or Telegraph answer any of those questions - because those officials don't actually exist. It's just the usual lashing out at a generic 'PC brigade'.

Will people watching the show spot that 'any violence' has been 'removed from the script'? Probably not, as the Mail's article makes clear when it quotes the puppeteer:

"Mr Punch is still a rascal and still has a variety of weapons in his arsenal but they are more socially appropriate."

He also reveals Punch's usual stick has been replaced by a mop. Do these newspapers have nothing more important to write about than that?

Punch and JudyTraditional and modern at the same time, the Punch and Judy show takes the original story of the timeless old rascal, Mr Punch, and brings him bang up to date in a politically correct 21st Century! The show includes the ever-present Judy, the long suffering baby and a surprise appearance from a very snappy crocodile, all kept under control by PC Plod, the policeman.

Therefore, it appears this 'up to date' version is, in fact, Liversidge's usual act. Thus the claim he's been 'ordered' to change it by 'officials' in Portsmouth looks even more hollow.

Nick Fletcher, spokesman for the venue, said the tower's management had not called for the changes to the show but said such alterations were inevitable...

"We have put no restraints on him but he has taken on board constructive comments from elsewhere and decided to make his Punch and Judy show more modern."

So how did the Mail and Telegraph write almost exactly the same story, with exactly the same slant and exactly the same quotes?

Step forward Blue Zebra PR. On Wednesday, they sent out a press release with the title 'Punch and Judy politics affect portsmouth performance: Puppet show toned down to meet PC standards' knowing that would get them - and their clients - some column inches from the usual suspects. The accuracy of it is, to them, secondary.

And the churnalism duly followed. For example, look at this paragraph from the Telegraph, repeating Littlejohn's lie about Colchester Borough Council:

However the three-hundred -year old show is increasingly falling victim to political correctness. Wiltshire council once discussed taking Punch and Judy books off their library shelves while Colchester council even planned to ban the puppet shows altogether.

And then this, from the original press release:

After Wiltshire County Council considered taking Punch and Judy books off its library shelves, and Colchester Borough Council threatened to ban the puppet shows, professors of the puppetry performance have felt under pressure to improve its reputation and bring a good name back to the nostalgic show.

All the quotes from Liversidge, and the event's commercial manager Paul Mahy, and all the bits in between, have been copied-and-pasted by the Mail and Telegraph straight from the press release.

Just to check the story, I emailed the Blue Zebra PR contact and asked for clarification on who the officials were. I got a reply, but didn't get an answer. But I was told:

Sadly we are unable to approve journalist’s stories before they go out, however we still think that the coverage for our client...is great!

Which says it all.

For comparison, screenshots of the press release and the two articles follow (click to enlarge):

An experienced journalist, Chris said the experience was an 'eye-opener'.

He says that while the nationals were 'lazy' and just relied on churnalism, most of the local media was 'good'. However, there was one exception:

After getting my statement issued though the police and having seen rival papers out-scoop and take a more news-focused attitude...the News in Portsmouth sent a reporter to doorstep my sister. He was met with a torrent of abuse...

This was on Sunday. I tried to contact the News, with no luck. I called the police media officer, who called the crime reporter, who said it was unlikely to have been the News behaving like that. Later that night I did get confirmation from the News that it was them – and an apology.

Chris also highlights the vultures offering the family cash for 'their story':

Someone claiming to be from Love It magazine had phoned to offer cash...

Agency SWNS also called my sister yesterday offering money for the story – there is just no way they would accept money and you have to admit it is sick of the agency to even offer.

He ends:

My sister is not me. She is an inherently private person, as is her husband. They have never courted publicity. They have never sought to be in the press. They are not celebrities. I ask the press of consider that and leave them alone.

Back on 13 April, this blog highlighted the Sun's claim that footballer Marlon King had converted to Islam in prison and was idolising tabloid hate-figure Abu Hamza. The second bit, in particular, sounded very suspicious. Nonetheless, the Mail mindlessly churned out its own version of the Sun's story.

it's hard to imagine how people got that 'contrary impression', isn't it?

And that's not the only football-related 'contrary impression' the Mail newspapers have been apologising for recently, this one from the Mail on Sunday:

Our story of February 21 ‘Chelsea helped Cole to silence claims of affair’, may have suggested that Chelsea FC and Steve Atkins, Head of Communications, encouraged a woman to lie by denying, falsely, that she had slept with a player.

In fact, there was no encouragement to lie and any advice was given to the woman in good faith on the understanding that the allegations were untrue. We apologise to Mr Atkins and Chelsea for any contrary impression given.

As part of our coverage of the break-up of Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marriage we reported on March 4 that the singer would fly to France to meet her estranged husband who was texting her lines from her songs.

We accept Cheryl did not fly to France, no such texts were sent and she denies saying she was scared of life as a single girl as we reported on March 1.We are happy to set the record straight and apologise to Cheryl.

On January 31, we published some personal information about Vanessa Perroncel concerning an alleged affair with the footballer John Terry.We have since been informed she would have preferred this to remain private and it was untrue in any case. We apologise to Miss Perroncel for any distress caused.

New blog exclarotive has looked into the Star's coverage and found the front page splash falls down in two key respects: they aren't 'Muslim-only' toilets and the council didn't spend any money on them.

The following day, the paper printed a letter from Ann Masters, one of the Express' regular correspondents, who reacted exactly as they hoped:

I felt sick to my stomach when reading the article "EU's plan to liquefy corpses and pour them down the drain" (July 8).

If this abhorrent act is to become law under EU ruling I hope David Cameron will be strong enough to say this would never be allowed in our country.

The thought of a loved one's body being poured down the drain fills me with horror. Having my mother cremated when I was just 15 was bad enough and very hard to bear but this is too repugnant to contemplate.

Where would be the dignity in such an awful way of saying goodbye to someone you love? This of course is all about reducing the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.

It really does beggar belief.

Ann Masters, Barton-on-Sea, Hants

Indeed it does.

Because when the Express said 'EU's plan' what they actually meant was 'Belgium's Flemish Association of Undertakers' plan'. It's easy to confuse the two.

“We are still planning to display at Dartmouth on August 27. We have not been contacted by the event organisers with any concerns about damage to buildings. In fact the Mayor of Dartmouth contacted the Team this morning to say that the town is still very much looking forward to the display and that reports in the national press about the town cancelling are simply not true.”

There is no point in hankering after a return to the ethnically homogeneous Britain of the Forties. It is never coming back.

Nor is there much point in complaining that some of those who were pilloried as racists for claiming that immigrants were “taking over” their neighbourhoods in the Sixties and Seventies were telling the truth – though they were.

A new study predicts that the ethnic minority share of the population will soar to 20 per cent over the next four decades. Much of the increase will be down to very high birth rates among some ethnic communities already established here.

The transition to a multi-racial society has happened remarkably quickly and without the permission of the public being sought by the political elite.

Yet things are not all bad. Many immigrant communities and families are making a big contribution to society and are now over-represented in the professions.

Others, alas, have high rates of welfare dependency and criminality. Some have fully integrated into mainstream British culture, others are almost fully insulated from it.

At its best, modern Britain is more culturally stimulating and free than was the case 70 years ago. But at its worst it is a country of resentful strangers living in close proximity to each other but with little in common.

What Britain needs now is a long pause in immigration to allow a core common culture that all ethnic groups observe to become established. Britons old and new need time to get to know each other.

Last week, the Star said there was 'no room for gays'. Today, there's no room for anyone new:

No MORE...WE'RE FULL

In just two generations the very face of Britain will change beyond recognition.

Research reveals that one in five of us will be from an ethnic minority, more than double the current levels.

The groups growing fastest are white, from Europe and America.

Britain has a long and proud tradition of being multi-cultural.

But in recent years the vast numbers of newcomers from Eastern Europe has put our services under intolerable pressure.

Our entire support system, including housing, schools and hospitals, has been pushed to the very limit.

Leave aside that we're all 'ethnics' of one mongrel sort or another; this makes it quite clear what's going on. There are whites and there are 'ethnics'. How much more explicit does it have to be before we start calling it what it is?

As Anton points out, the Express illustrate this 'vile story' with this image of Muslim women:

Yet the article, based on population forecasts from the University of Leeds about what might happen in 2051, clearly says:

The White British and Irish ethnic groupings are expected to grow very slowly, while the Other White category is projected to grow the fastest, driven by immigration from Europe, the US and Australasia.

Funny how the don't use pictures of French, American or Australian women, isn't it?

In the last week we've had 'Muslims force pool cover-up', 'Now asylum if you're gay' and now this.

Maybe they should change their claim to the World's Nastiest Newspaper.

As for the Star, the story of Abdi and Sayrug Nur, who are unemployed and have seven children, has been doing the rounds for a few days, since the family moved into a house Kensington which the papers claim is worth £2m. The Sun, Mail and Mirror have all written about it.

We demanded answers from the Department for Work and Pensions and they have agreed to evict the family.

Officials said they would remove the Nurs when the new rules come into force next April.

So the Nurs will apparently be moved when the rules change next April. Funny the Star did say that it would be in nine months time when it probably would have happened without the Star's 'hard-hitting campaign' anyway.

And look again at the headline '£2m asylum scrounger'. £2m represents the value of the house they live in, so he hasn't 'scrounged' £2m. The papers are up-in-arms about the £2,000 a week the local council is paying for the house - but that goes straight to the owners, so he doesn't get that either. (The Mail claims the rent had been £1,050 per week, but this was raised to £2,000, the maximum available under housing benefit rules, but there's little anger directed at the owners of the house.)

Also 'asylum'. Nur sought asylum in the UK in 1999 after working for the Red Cross in Somalia. It was granted and so now he is a refugee. But the Star and its ilk want to associate 'asylum' with 'scrounging' and so continue to label him as that.

And clearly the Desmond papers want to continue to demonise Muslims, foreigners, immigrants, 'ethnics' for their own miserable ends.

Monday, 12 July 2010

Telegraph:Star:Express:and on the BBC:The wording of some of these headlines, as in the swimming pool cover-up one, suggests this is something being 'forced' on people to 'appease' the whims of Muslims.

The elements of the guidance the media has picked up on - about exams, swimming and sex education - are all listed in the MCB's booklet as 'features of good practice'.

But neither they nor the council in Stoke-on-Trent are demanding they all be adopted. Phrases such as 'appropriate consideration' and 'try to avoid being scheduled' are evident; phrases such as 'we demand' are not.

For example, on swimming:

In general, participation in swimming is an acceptable activity whilst fasting.

However, for many pupils this activity may prove to be an issue, as the potential for swallowing water is very high. Some pupils or parents consider the risk too great and may wish to avoid swimming whilst fasting. Others may take the view that as swallowing water is unintentional it does not break the fast.

Schools with a significant number of Muslim pupils should try to avoid scheduling swimming lessons during Ramadan to remove unnecessary barriers to full participation.

And on exams:

It is inevitable that certain statutory and internal school examinations may fall during Ramadan. Schools should give appropriate consideration when scheduling internal examinations, since the combination of preparing for exams and fasting may prove challenging for some pupils.

Several of the headlines refer to 'avoiding insulting/offending Muslims'. It is a nasty little phrase that's become all too popular with stories such as this.

But are these suggestions about 'avoiding offending Muslims', or about schools being sensitive to the religious beliefs and wellbeing of their pupils? As 5CC says, why is it the latter is so often reported as the former by the tabloids, and blown out of all proportion?

And they're blown out of proportion for a reason. The tabloids know this 'special treatment for minorities' narrative goes down very well with their readers - never mind that most of it is highly exaggerated if not outright lies.

Yet believe it or not, some of this reporting is actually a very slight improvement on media coverage three years ago when the MCB report first came out. The Express claimed the MCB wanted to:

Ban un-Islamic schools

and had drawn up proposals that were disgracefully labelled as:

calls for all children to be taught in Taliban-style conditions

If this blog had existed then, that article would almost certainly have been mentioned...

Sunday, 11 July 2010

In an article published on this website on 27 December 2009 until 15 January 2010, entitled “Jet bomb ordered by 9/11 spiritual leader”, we incorrectly described the charity Interpal as “Hamas-supporting”.

As such the article would have wrongly been understood to mean that Interpal and its trustees provided support for Hamas notwithstanding that Hamas is deemed a terrorist organisation and thereby were aiding terrorism.

We accept that this is wrong and neither Interpal nor its Trustees support Hamas.

We wish to apologise to Interpal and its Trustees and are happy to set the record straight.

If the 27 December 2009 article 'Jet bomb ordered by 9/11 spiritual leader' sounds familiar, that's because the Express has already apologised for it twice before.

Last Wednesday, the Mail reported that three sections of one of the paths on Snowdon, totalling 100m, had been covered in tarmac (and then topped with crushed stone to make it look like the rest of the path).

The next day, in the paper's main op-ed piece, Janet Street-Porter repeated these half-truths. She clearly hadn't read the original article properly and so sounded even more silly than she usually manages by basing her rant on something other than the facts:

...sadly — and unstoppably — Snowdon is being tamed and turned into a Welsh version of Disney Land.

Now, a long section of the ancient Miners’ Track has just been covered with Tarmac.

'A long section'? Even if the 100m of new tarmac was in one place, it wouldn't be a long section - it makes up about 4% of the total length of the Miner's Track. That it's actually in three sections proves she's another Mail columnist who doesn't do her research and bases her reactionary columns on Mail headlines.

She continued:

Laying a Tarmac path will just encourage more silly people to think they can conquer nature when they can’t.

And:

Tarmac and peaks don’t belong together. At this rate, the UK will soon be concreted over from St Ives to Ullswater.

Adding:

Park officials claim they want to make the route more suitable for those with physical disabilities.I’m outraged — they’ll be putting in platforms for the train and piped music next.

So Street-Porter sounds like she might actually be in a 'fury'.

Shame all her outrage - and all those words - are wasted on something that hasn't happened.

And she wasn't the only one to give this non-story more coverage. In his Friday column, Richard Littlejohn made light of an initiative from Kent Police's Gipsy and Traveller Action Group (GTAG) to provide 'safe caravans' to Gypsy women who suffer domestic abuse:

That's a lot of safe caravans. Quite apart from the cost, they've all got to be parked somewhere.It might explain why they're Tarmacking over Snowdonia.

Saturday, 10 July 2010

Pressure on Education Secretary Michael Gove intensified today after he was criticised by a Cabinet colleague over his mishandling of the classroom-building programme.

Mr Gove will embark on a tour of the country to say sorry in person after giving schools false hope that their projects would be spared the axe...

Mr Gove, who was branded a 'miserable pipsqueak' in parliament over a series of blunders he made with the axed £55bn scheme, will go to nine schools in Sandwell, West Midlands and one in Doncaster, South Yorkshire to say sorry.

The men, from Cameroon and Iran respectively, sought to challenge the previous government’s contention that they had no grounds for asylum as they could move “elsewhere” in their home states and be “discreet” about their sexuality...

First, Lord Roger admitted in his ruling that his comments about gay men going to Kylie concerts and drinking cocktails were 'trivial stereotypical examples'. But perhaps he should have been more media savvy and known that the intolerant, racist, homophobic tabloid press were going to leap on this point as a way of making the asylum system seem absurd - just as they did with that lie about the man who was (not) saved from deportation solely by his cat.

'Now' asylum seekers get to stay because of Kylie! You couldn't make it up!

The Express emphasise this point by saying 'Now...', which tabloids use at the start of a headline as shorthand for 'Look what stupid thing is going to happen now...'

Second, the Express' jumbled headline - and the tone of the other coverage - is totally misleading. The judgment doesn't mean every asylum seeker who is (or, in the tabloid mindset, claims to be) gay will be allowed to stay automatically, no matter how strong their actual case is.

The Express' ludicrous poll asks: 'Should you get asylum just for being gay?' This isn't the issue at all - as the writers of this muck well know. The issue is that certain countries are persecuting, imprisoning, flogging and executing homosexuals and that is a perfectly reasonable basis for them to seek asylum elsewhere.

It's a thorny issue, so instead of arguing with the decision on moral or ethical grounds, which they can't really do without looking like they might have some kind of problem with gays and foreigners, just moan about how it obviously means that by 2015 the country will be sinking into the sea under the sheer weight of Iranians ostentatiously brandishing Scissor Sisters albums to try and pass as gay.

Third, the newspapers, the people leaving comments on the articles, and the two gobshites who pop up - tabloid favourites Andrew Green from Migrationwatch and MP Philip Davies - all suggest this ruling will, to quote the Star, 'open the floodgates'.

On the Sky News press preview last night, presenter Anna Botting suggested this would mean asylum seekers would now arrive in Britain and 'pass the gay ticket over' - whatever the hell that means.

But there's something deeply troubling about this view because behind it is the idea that asylum seekers are somehow looking for an angle. It's a belief based on the assumption that since asylum seekers aren't really fleeing persecution, they'll come to Britain and come up with any excuse going to be able to stay. It says: 'Now' they're all going to pretend to be gay if they think it'll work. This says much about the ground on which the asylum debate takes place.

Fourth, the attitudes of these newspapers are, of course, rooted in an anti-immigrant viewpoint.

For at this time when our public services are strained beyond endurance, it means Britain must now, in a dramatic reversal of policy, give a home to all gay asylum-seekers who are prevented from displaying their sexuality openly in their home countries.

Where are we to draw the line? This is all about numbers and a small island’s ability to absorb an ever-increasing population.

Of course homosexuals across the globe should be able to live free from persecution but their right to do so should not take precedence in British law over the right of the British people not to have their country overrun by foreigners.

And not just overrun by foreigners but overrun by 'gay' foreigners.

The Express' sister paper, the Star, managed to top that and came up with a depressing, and disturbing, headline:

This really is grotesque. There are many, many reasons why Richard Desmond is a completely unfit person to be running two national newspapers and that putrid headline can be added to the list.

The Daily Star thinks their headline 'No room for gays' is acceptable in 21st century Britain. We think not.

The editors of these tabloids know articles such as these - inflammatory, scaremongering, intolerant - push the buttons of their readers. Unfortunately, most have been so brainwashed by the daily drivel they are fed by these wretched publications that they believe it all at face value. Reading their comments is a disheartening experience and any number of them could have been highlighted here. But we'll stick with two.

This one, because it gives an idea of the cluelessness of many of them:

And this one because it highlights the dangers and possible consequences of such coverage: